Lestranges: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Croc

One night I had something to drop off to my parents, so I called them on my way home from a Sharks game to make sure they were there. Despite normally being in bed sometime around 8, when I finally got my Dad on the phone, he told me they were up at our long-time neighbors', the Lestranges. I pulled into the neighborhood about ten minutes later and found them all in the kitchen, drinking wine and wearing Crocs. The Lestranges' daughter had just started working for Crocs and I guess they give you your own little store's worth of Croc crap to give out to your family and whatever weird neighbors you have on hand, so they'd all been kitted out in black Crocs with the furry liners. It was quite the scene. Because I am an awesome daughter/neighbor, I was like "yeah, everyone stand with your Crocs together and we'll take a picture" so I could mock them at a later date (in context, about a year later).
Needless to say, these deviant humans decided that I not only needed my own pair of Crocs, but also needed a set that had a pair of Bruins...plugs on them. This is not unlike telling me I need a bear trap with ebola slathered on the jaws clamped to my ankle. I hate Crocs, mostly because people insist on wearing them everywhere and this is NOT ACCEPTABLE FOOTWEAR, but also because they are hideous. I will, however, admit that they are extremely comfortable. I now wear them for driving and gardening.

The comfort, however, is kind of a problem, because it has in fact caused me to forget they are on my feet. On my weekly journey to Boston this past week, I got to Riverside and realized that I had forgotten to take my Crocs off. This whole Ph.D In Boston thing is a real test of my organizational skills, and I still fail at it occasionally. Here's how it works. I take the commuter rail in from Westborough on Tuesday. I have classes all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I stay with my sister in the North End during this time. On Thursday, I have one class in the morning, and then I take the commuter rail back to Westborough and go to work (about 10 minutes from Westborough station, which is FULL OF SPIDERS oh my God so many spiders). This all means that I need to take clothes for school AND work with me, in a conveniently portable manner - this means "my San Jose Sharks backpack" which offends my sartorial sensibilities but can't be helped - but of course I often forget that work happens after school because Thursday is a remarkably long way from Tuesday in my brain.

ANYWAY

There I was at Riverside in my Crocs, and I thought to myself "hooray! I am a slob, and live out of my car." I forgot that I had recently cleaned my car (read: sorted through the landfill that is my back seat as Rich, Dad and I drove from Connecticut after returning a 2010 bright orange Mustang with standard transmission that necessitated my needing to re/learn driving stick within 12 hours to drive it in a parade before ultimately giving up and making Dad do it, and by "sorted through" I of course mean "put the trash in one pile and then shoved all the clothing and shoes into a formal gown I had in there and tied it at the neck for carriage, then forgot said dress-bag in the car numerous times") so rather than having thirty pair of shoes in there, I had three. My options were:
Extremely awesome Dav Peacock Rainboot-Shaped-Like-A-Cowboy-Boot. I nearly peed when I found these, because I have giant calves and most rainboots do not look awesome and adorable on me like they do on all the people with normal legs. I also have a longstanding desire for cowboy boots, but I am a snob and want NICE cowboy boots because obviously I need them to stand up to my busy schedule of cow-wrangling and also because I am a dork. These look like cowboy boots AND have peacocks on them AND are rainproof and therefore are 100% win.
My pink Nike Frees which I wear to the gym, except only a little, since I work out barefoot.
These Walk-Of-Shame-Tastic satin pumps, which are lovely and make my legs look great but do NOT go with my grad student outfit of "jeans and a black shirt with Sharks backpack."

I was concerned that my feet would get hot in the rainboots, because this weather is giving me issues with adjusting to actual temperature, and I didn't want people to think I was screwing people in the Political Science department or T stations or whatever, so I went with the sneakers. I feel like this entire episode probably says something really worrying about me but I am too tired to analyze it thoroughly.